Fun Activities For Young Students in Volume 1

Give Your Young Student More Practice with These Creative Math Activities by Kelly Massey

Memory Match

Write their number facts for whichever family they are working on onto index cards (for example the s 7’s, 1+6 2+5 3+4 4+3 5+2 6+1 etc)

Make two sets so they can match. Flip them over so they are blank side up and have them draw two and try to match the facts. You can also put the answers to the facts as your child learns more and more families and if they draw a 1+6 and a 7, for example they would win the match.

Pipe Cleaner Numbers

This is my one of my favorites. Take ten or so pipe cleaners and cut them in half. Have your child shape them into numbers from one to whatever number family you are working on. Then have them shape one into a plus sign and a minus sign. Then put facts together.

Fact Family Stickers

Write out on a piece of blank paper the fact family you are working on (Ex. 7’s family)

Subtraction Pom Poms

I drew seven circles on a piece of paper and wrote the fact family subtraction facts inside. We used double-sided tape on the outline of the circles just so pom poms wouldn’t slide around, but you don’t have to. I placed 7 of the same colored pom poms on each circle. My daughter then took the appropriate number of pom poms away per the written problem in the middle. For example if the middle said 7-4, she took four away and had three left on her circle.

Tally Marks

For this I filled a bag with assorted colored marbles (keeping with our example 7’s, I would put 7 marbles of each color in the bag) Have your child reach in and grab a handful out, put them aside (This is just so they do not always have the same number of tally marks). Now as they pull out a marble have them write a tally mark on a piece of paper under that corresponding color. Pull out another and put a tally mark under its corresponding color. Keep doing this until the bag is empty. Last, have them count the tally marks under each and write the corresponding number and add. You guessed it –it is their fact family again!

Dice

This is simple, we rolled the dice and she gave me the number that she had to add to it to equal our fact family. For example, if she rolled a two she blurted out five etc. This worked with subtraction as well. If she rolled a four, she had to tell me 7-4=3.

Store Them All in an Envelope

All of the activities are put into a large manila envelope and labeled with the appropriate fact family (For example 7’s envelope) Each fact family gets it's own envelope to store all the activities, until the next child is ready to start the Learn Math Fast System.

Fact Finger Paint

I know this sounds scary! Mess and all, but it is not bad I promise. Assign each number your working on a color. Again using the above example of 7’s family, I would assign 1-red 2-blue 3-orange 4-white 5-green 6-yellow 7-purple 0-black. We made flowers, if you have a boy, he might enjoy bugs or trains. Tell your child to make fact family flowers or train cars. For example, I drew circles and had my daughter dip her thumb into the red and put one thumbprint on the circle then she would dip her thumb in yellow and make six more thumbprints all the way around the circle. Voila! A beautiful thumbprint flower showing 1+6.